Friday, September 26, 2014

Up Front

Bravado from Bunkerville.
By C.J. Hadley
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is not exactly a poster child for public rela- tions or the politically correct, but he
is a man with a large family and his livelihood is under assault. Should he give up more than a century of history and good management and go away, allegedly for a desert tortoise—like 50 other ranchers in Clark County did—or does he fight for his right to stay on land his family has worked since the 1870s?
Things were unfolding in Bunkerville, Nev., last April when we were shipping our Summer issue. Swarms of people descended on the Bundy Ranch to support this embattled rancher after heavily armed agents of the feder- al government tased one of his sons. The Bureau of Land Management says that Bundy owes a million dollars and that’s an easy sound bite, but that “debt” depends on the way you look at it. (See page 37.)
Thanks to a reporter from the New York Times, Cliven Bundy put his foot in his mouth and lost a lot of support when he made com- ments that were considered by the intelli- gentsia to be racist. He definitely wandered too far off the ranch reservation but was making a point that the way the country works is much like slavery, with huge reliance on the federal government. No self-respect. No indepen- dence. No liberty. Bundy had a point, but stat- ed it badly. Nevada Sen. Harry Reid was so angry when his BLM boys were forced to back down to prevent bloodshed (BLM’s boss used to work for Harry) that he appeared on televi- sion in Las Vegas and put his foot in his mouth and equaled Bundy. Reid called the rancher’s supporters “violent domestic terrorists” and threatened, “It’s not over.”
When two rabid white supremacists killed two cops and an innocent bystander in Las Vegas in May, the media instantly claimed they were Bundy supporters and said nothing about the fact that those twisted souls were removed from the Bundy Ranch by members of the militia who were protecting Bundy’s family.
A couple of weeks after the BLM backed down, I received an email from Mark Dowie, who teaches at U.C. Berkeley and is a great
writer. (See Summer 2006, “Enemies of Con- servation,” at www.rangemagazine.com.) Dowie had read a piece in Esquire, and asked, “You are not going to cover the Bundy story, are you?” Esquire’s writer, Caty Enders, admit- ted in her April 25 story that she was on the scene “for a few hours” and “it was dizzyingly hot.” Her story started: “Live from Bunkerville! Welfare negroes, the United Nations, sexually devious lawyers, Satan, a Chinese solar farm, microchips, secret-agent NPS, and more!”
Caty got the Chinese thing right but should have stayed home in New Mexico because she ignored the real story. It isn’t hard to figure that this is a complex tale that’s been unwind- ing for a very long time. Maybe she should have considered that Bundy and his family have been tending this land for generations with very few days that could be called easy. Maybe she should have asked why so much pressure has been put on one old rancher to remove his cattle to save a tortoise that isn’t even endangered. Maybe she should have asked why 51 Clark County ranchers are gone and why Bundy is the last man standing.
Award-winning journalist Vin Supryno- wicz, formerly with the Las Vegas Review-Jour- nal, covered the story for RANGE. Vin has known Bundy since the early ’90s, understands the land, customs and culture, and brought back an extraordinary report. He offers a broad view. The history. The facts. The pressures. The regulations put upon western ranchers and, with every new one, a lesser chance of survival in the western deserts.
As we go to press, a July 8 Associated Press story claimed Sheriff Gillespie is blaming the BLM “for escalating the conflict and ignoring his advice to delay the roundup.” BLM spokes- woman Celia Boddington said it planned and conducted the roundup in “full coordination” with Gillespie and his office. “It is unfortunate that the sheriff is now attempting to rewrite the details of what occurred, including his claims that the BLM did not share accurate informa- tion,” she said. “The sheriff encouraged the operation and promised to stand shoulder to shoulder with us as we enforced two recent federal court orders. Sadly, he backed out of his commitment shortly before the operation— and after months of joint planning—leaving the BLM and the National Park Service to han- dle the crowd control that the sheriff previous- ly committed to handling.”
Maybe it’s better that they are fighting each other rather than Cliven Bundy. But it won’t last because we know when Sen. Reid makes a threat, he doesn’t quit until he’s satisfied. ■
http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-14/range-fa14-up_front.pdf

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